Thursday, March 20, 2008

A Week of Zeke: The Aftermath

Oh, my God. It smells like lavender cigar farts in here.

~ Dr. Morpheus

Zeke's back East, slinging cheese and my schedule and diet are getting back to normal. My original intention was to post daily updates of what we were drinking and eating, but it was just too much. There were more beers than I have digits and cocktails aplenty. Big stinky cheeses from lots of places. Bacon mints. Bacon-studded chocolate. Sea salt chocolates. Tacos in Mexico. Tamales in San Diego. DIY steaks grilled on a communal pit in a San Diego bar. Flanken-cut ribs, bacon-riddled succotash, crusty local breads, and hangtown fry. Brewery tours and behind-the-scenes samplings of vintage beers being sold for obscene amounts on eBay. Hell, we even went to the Tijuana Costco.

Dr. Morpheus, my perpetual sidekick, is a anesthesiologist by trade, but sleeps in as much as he can, so he's earned the nickname doubly. Naturally, he missed out on much of the shenanigans, but attended when he could. The quote above came as the three us of were getting in the car. Now, I might smoke four to six cigars a year—a nostalgic indulgence, reminding me of my grandfather and his habitual Dutch Masters.

I smoked a year's allotment over the last two weeks.

Some of that may have happened in the car. Even with the windows down, the smell lingered. Add to that the 6 ounces of really aromatic lavender I bought at the Hillcrest Farmers' Market, plus the bag of cheeses that Zeke bought at Venissimo, all of which we left in the car for about an hour while snagging a drink at a local bar on a warm St. Paddy's day, and, well...It was was dag nasty smelling in there.

The cheese smell is gone, the cigar is barely noticeable. But it still kinda smells like someone's grandmother's linen drawer in there. Fortunately, the skies are blue and it's t-shirt weather. Driving up the Pacific Coast Highway with the windows down and the sunroof open might just blow out the last of it.

Twits, Tweets, and Whatnot

Get Your Copy

Rowley Who?

I'm a contributor to Whisky Advocate, contributing editor for Distiller magazine, a former board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and an erstwhile museum curator. After a life of living in bitterly cold and unspeakably hot places, I'm lucky enough to be working my tail off in southern California. Can't beat that with a stick.

Email me: moonshinearchives (at) gmail (dot) com

My day job is freelance writing for business, government, and academic clients. When I’m not helping others get their stories out, I’m eating and drinking, planning to eat and drink, or, relying on my training as an anthropologist and museum curator to reflect on what I’ve eaten and drunk. I travel whenever I can, visiting distillers, artisan food producers, secondhand bookstores, and farmers’ markets. Sometimes I manage to write about it here.